I was shooting this week with a friend who mostly works in the studio and is a dedicated lightmeter user. We got talking about the difference between his approach and mine which is more a Strobist philosophy of trusting the screen and the histogram to build the image.
One of the examples I used to explain how I shoot was a headhsot session I did for a friend’s business. In this post I’m going to walk through the shots and my thinking at the time.
The aim is some half-length portraits that have a bit of drama but aren’t too moody. I decide I will go with a key light and on-axis fill, i.e. light coming from the same direction as the camera.
The lighting is from two Nikon SB-900 Speedlights fired by my trusty Phottix Atlas triggers. Camera is the Nikon D3. Lens is the new Nikon 50mm f/1.8 G.
Modifiers are the Orbis ringflash adaptor and the Westcott Micro Apollo.
Step 1 – what to do with the ambient?
I’d seen some images of the space I was going to be working in before I arrived and liked the idea of using the brick wall running the length of the office as a background.
On the day I shot there was a bright beam of sunlight coming through a high window onto the wall. My first decision was whether to use this in the image or try and remove it. I decided to try and use the beam to add some depth to the background.
I need to make sure that my subject is not in the beam so I can control the light on them with flash.
I hold my hand a head-hight and move forward from the background until there’s no sunlight falling onto my hand. This gives me the distance my subject needs to stand from the wall to be in shadow. I stick a small piece of black tape on the floor at this point.
Step 2 – find the background exposure
With the camera in Manual mode I set my ISO 200 which is the base ISO for the D3.
The beam of sunlight is going to be very bright and at the middle apertures (f/4 – f/8 or so) I am hoping to work at so I need to knock as much ambient out of the exposure as I can. Shutter speed controls ambient exposure so I set my shutter speed to 1/250 of a second which is maximum sync for the D3.
I set my aperture to f/5.6 – this is purely a starting point and I think I will be lucky if I spend the shoot at this aperture. You have to start somewhere.
I am looking to hold a good amount of detail in the highlight parts of the exposure – the shadow parts should be as close to black as I can make them.
11.01am – my first shot
Good start! I am happy with this because I know that the shadow areas will be lifted somewhat by the fill. I decide to leave this well alone for now and move on.
My exposure is now pretty much fixed so any lights I add into the shot need to fit to this exposure.
Step 3 – fill light
I setup a SB-900 in manual-mode with the Orbis ringflash and ask my contact (who is not my final subject) to come into shot. What I want to do here is get the fill light to a point where I can see some detail in the shadow areas of the exposure. There’s no correct amount of fill so I go by eye. I don’t remember what power setting the flash is on but that’s not really the point of this post 
Ok, that’s a bit dark. I dial in some more power on the flash.
Too bright. Split the difference…
That’ll do. I can always adjust the fill if I need to.
Apologies to the lovely Saikala for posting this image. Hope she forgives me in the name of education… 
Step 4 – key light
I setup another SB-900 in manual-mode on a stand and attach the Westcott Micro Apollo. The light is just about in the 45* up-and-right position.
I set the power on this light to two stops higher than the light in the Orbis. I do this because the Orbis is reported to eat two stops of light. I don’t know if this is true or even if this is going to be a decent exposure but I do know it’s going to get me somewhere in the ballpark.
There’s a lot of spill on the background and the light needs to go higher and more round to the front. Reposition…
Better. I am starting to like this light. I want to give the subject a little more light. I change my aperture to f/5. This gives the flash-lit part of the exposure and extra 1/3rd of a stop. I don’t adjust the lights.
Fill is nice and the image is getting a nice pop from the background. Key is probably a bit bright but I will probably have to see how it looks on my subjects anyway.
11.08 am – time to get Raf, my first subject in
He’s taller and paler-skinned than my test-model so the key is now a bit too bright. Fill is decent. I drop the key down a third of a stop. Raf asks me how the shot looks so I show him on the screen and explain why he’s a bit nuclear. I ask Raf to step a little more towards me.
That looks good. 9 minutes after taking the first frame I have my setup dialled in and I roll with this for some more of Raf and the other founders of Plumbee.
Gerald..
and Jodi…
I shot the last image from this setup at 11.17am – three portraits including setting up the light in just about 15 minutes.
UPDATE – 21st March
Here’s another shot using the same setup…
